As the bus trundled down the Avenida Diagonal, one man was absent from the top deck: Frank Rijkaard. While his players celebrated, he sat in the gloom below, silently puffing on a cigarette. On the way back from clinching the title at Valencia, Bar%26ccedil;a’s president, Joan Laporta, had raised the Dutchman’s arm aloft, like a boxer, as they arrived in the departure lounge. The coach simply looked down, pulled his hand free and hurried through passport control.It was typical Rijkaard. Since taking over in 2003, he has stood out by not standing out at all, the quiet man at the centre of Barcelona’s revival. If Roman Abramovich wants a low-profile coach, Rijkaard slips under the radar entirely. What made Rijkaard’s spats with Jose Mourinho so notable was not the way he reacted but that he reacted at all.One of Rijkaard’s charges in the Holland team defines him in three words: cool under pressure. “Frank speaks so quietly you have to strain to hear him,” says Ronaldinho. “The best thing about the mister,” adds Puyol, “is that he is very calm.” Rijkaard admits his first task on taking over was to make the players feel “protected and relaxed”.At Barcelona that is easier said than done. It is not just about managing the team but managing the whole entourage. “The key to our success is the calmness Rijkaard transmits to everyone,” says Laporta. Privately, those close to Rijkaard say the pressure has taken its toll, though rarely has it surfaced publicly. He is widely liked, never seeks conflict Mourinho-style and rarely responds to barbed questions or even the most bitter of accusations. Rijkaard could hardly be more different from the former coach Louis van Gaal. But it worked. Although only the third choice, behind Guus Hiddink and Ronald Koeman, Rijkaard joined a club that had not won the league in five years and lurched from crisis to crisis. At Christmas 2003 Bar%26ccedil;a were 12th, 18 points behind Real Madrid and humiliated 5-0 at M%26aacute;laga.But Rijkaard did not panic and neither did the club. Nine successive wins began a run in which they overhauled Real to finish second to Valencia. The following season, with Eto’o and Deco joining, they won the title, repeated the success the following year and added the European Cup by beating Arsenal in Paris.It was all done with wonderful football. Schooled at Ajax, and a disciple of Total Football, Rijkaard is adamant about “keeping the game open”. He adopted a 4-3-3 formation that allowed a catalogue of creative stars to complement each other. Winning games and winning over people, here was the footballing nirvana that Roman Abramovich believed he could not achieve with Mourinho.”He gives us freedom and doesn’t always pressure us,” said Puyol. But what was meant as a compliment soon became a criticism. Rijkaard’s relaxed nature came to be judged as passivity. Critics who lauded his paternalism in victory attacked his weakness in defeat. Rijkaard had, after all, allowed Ronaldinho to miss more than half of last season’s training yet still refused to drop him, even as he became clearly overweight. Rijkaard’s sessions, though, were dismissed as short, lacking intensity, and with no tactical work at all.With Henk Ten Cate moving to Chelsea, Rijkaard appeared to have lost the hard man he needed to make his routine succeed. Some urged Rijkaard to get tough and he took some measures, including dropping Ronaldinho for the first time ever last month, but adopting a harder attitude would not wash and he was not false enough to try it. It was not that he made wrong decisions; he made no decisions at all. The balancing act did not work either. Rijkaard’s ability to maintain harmony blew up in his face when Eto’o launched a furious harangue on Ronaldinho and referred to the coach as a “bad person”. Rijkaard showed no reaction.Packed with talent and blessed with a huge lead, Bar%26ccedil;a contrived to throw away last year’s league title. Divided, lacking tactical rigour or fitness, they appeared to have gone down the gal%26aacute;ctico route. This year’s poor start has only reinforced that belief. Suddenly the call is for another kind of coach, an iron man in the Mourinho fashion; just as Mourinho’s former employers are looking for a coach cut from a different cloth.Rijkaard’s recordAs a player1980 Made senior debut aged 17 for Ajax under Leo Beenhakker1982 Won championship with Ajax, the first of three titles in his first spell at the club1987 Fell out with Johan Cruyff, eventually going out on loan to Real Zaragoza before moving to Milan where he achieved legendary status1988 Arrigo Sacchi converted him from central defender to world-class midfielder in a side with Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit who won the European Cup twice and Serie A title twice. As an international won Euro 88 and a semi-finalist in 1992As a manager2000 Despite inexperience as a manager, he guided Holland to the Euro 2000 semi-finals2003 After a difficult start he turned around Barcelona’s fortunes. They finished runners-up in first season before winning La Liga twice2006 Won Champions League, beating Arsenal in the final
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